APPEDINX H Content Guidelines

Content Guidelines

The following table lists the content guidelines for the Cisco IEC 4650.

Table H-1 Content Guidelines

Video formats Multiple video formats are supported on the native player including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.264. Multiple containers/muxers are supported on the native player including AVI, MOV, MP4, MPEG2, and MPEG-2/TS (extensions: .wmv, .avi, .mov, .mp4, .mpg, .ts). Formats not recommended: On2 VP 6 (used by old FLV)

Note Native video is strongly preferred over Flash video.

Note The IEC 4650 supports WebM (VP8/Vorbis) and Ogg (Theora/Vorbis) for HTML5 video.

Note Use of the native player strongly preferred over HTML5 video.

Note The native player’s video compatibility can be validated by using VLC 2.0.8.

Audio formats Multiple audio formats are supported on the native player including mp2, mp3, aac, mp4a, wma1, wma2, flac, and mpga. HTML HTML4 / CSS3 (early support for HTML5) Flash Up to Flash 11

Cisco Interactive Experience Client User Guide H-1 Appendix H Content Guidelines Content Guidelines

Video Performance When using a native player, the IEC 4610 can support H.264 video up to Limitations 720p @ 6Mbps.

Note The amount of CPU power required to decode a video clip depends on multiple factors such as codec, bitrate, and resolution of the video source.

Different video codecs have different compression algorithms. H.264 offers much better compression efficiency than MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 but uses much more a complex algorithm and requires more CPU power to decode. For example, to achieve the same level of quality, it may require 5 Mbps using MPEG2 but less than 2 Mbps using H.264. The IEC 4610 can decode 1080p 14Mbps MPEG2 video with less than 90% of CPU usage, but cannot decode 720p 8Mbps H.264 video without obvious frame drops.

Note When the video source is interlaced (1080i, 480i, etc.), you may see interlacing artifacts due to the lack of de-interlacing capability on the native player.

Note The size of the native player object does not affect the CPU usage. If the video source is the same, the CPU usage is the same regardless of the player's height and width. That is, if the video source is 1280x720, the CPU usage will not change by setting the native player's size to 320x180 or 1920x1080.

Screen Resolutions Up to 1920x1080 (1080p); IEC4650 defaults to monitor’s native resolution To ensure the content scales well, build for the lowest resolution expected, then use stretchers to make sure it can stretch to the highest resolution expected. Screen Rotations Both horizontal (landscape) and vertical (portrait) modes are supported with 90, 180, 270 degree turns. The content should be laid out naturally. General Content Guidelines HTML/JavaScript is a preferred mechanism for building kiosk applications. Use of Flash should be limited to small size and non-video rendering functionality. Ticker tapes should be using CSS3 for scrolling. “Screensaver” video playback should be postponed when the kiosk is being interacted with to avoid audio conflicts and preserve responsiveness. Regularly-playing videos should be cached locally.

Cisco Interactive Experience Client User Guide H-2